1. Technical Field of Invention
The present invention pertains to the fields of metallurgy and metallurgical apparatus. More particularly, this invention concerns a specialized metallurgical process for ironmaking and steelmaking and a means for smelting ore and treating liquefied metal.
2. Description of the Background Art
The history of steelmaking is largely the history of batch processes that employ a single zone for oxidizing and reducing the metal. See, e.g., 21 Kirk-Othmer, "Steel," Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology 552 (3rd ed. 1978). Since the Bessemer process was introduced in the mid-1800s, such batch processes have been greatly improved. Nonetheless, significant limitations linger, not the least of which is the limited production rate of batch processes.
To overcome the limitations of batch processes, the steel industry has long tried to develop a continuous steelmaking process. In the 1960s and 1970s many continuous processes were investigated, and an overview of this research and several more recent studies can be found in Akira Fukuzawa, "Continuous Steelmaking Process: Research and Future," 22 Bull. Japan Inst. Metals 855-861 (1983); the English translation may be found in 27 Transaction of National Research Institute for Metals 81 (1985) However, serious problems remain unsolved, due in part to the co-occurrence of reduction and combustion reactions in the same furnace. See, e.g., T. Ibaraki, et al., "Development of Smelting Reduction of Iron Ore--An Approach to Commercial Ironmaking," 49th Ironmaking Conference Proceedings, Detroit (March 1990). More recently, Paul E. Queneau, "The QSL Reactor for Lead and Its Prospects for Ni, Cu, and Fe," 30 JOM (Dec. 1989), proposed a horizontal smelter for continuous steelmaking (in FIG. 9 and related text) but noted that there could be operating problems relating to kinetics. With reference to the hypothesized system, the article speculates at page 35 that: "Its ironmaking capacity obviously would not compete with the mighty blast furnace . . . but it could be at least adequate for mini-mills." Despite the decades of research and the Queneau proposal, the steelmaking industry has failed to produce a viable means for continuous ironmaking and steelmaking.